


breathe

by softcoregore



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Breathe!Songfic, Character Study, College AU, Flashback, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, In the Heights - Freeform, M/M, Poor Barba, Songfic, travel through time, very brief relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 13:57:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20210902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softcoregore/pseuds/softcoregore
Summary: the song “breathe” from in the heights, as though it’s about Rafael and his harvard journey.





	breathe

**Author's Note:**

> i just love ith and i listened to breathe again recently (it was always my fave song from the st) and i was hit by how much it reminded me of barba so i wrote abt it... p much thats it lol

_ Y si pierdes mis huellas que dios te bendiga  
Respira _

Rafael was dreading the walk back from the subway, laden with suitcases and one of the big blue and red bags every poor family had in place of duffle bags. The heat was killing him, his feet hurt from lugging everything around, the coach he had to ride all the way from Harvard was still haunting him, but most of all he felt the sheer, weighty anxiety only academic failures felt.Walking through the neighbourhood, he felt like everyone’s eyes were on him, people he didn’t even know judging him and his downtrodden expression as he hauled everything down Jerome Avenue.

He continued going, hoping he wouldn’t bump into Alex or Eddie. He didn’t know if he could face the shame of seeing them, especially after ignoring them all year for the Harvard boys he tried so hard to impress. Everything that he had here, in  el barrio , his friends, the love he thought he once had, his family, all washed away for a pipe dream with the rich white boys he’s already lost.

Turning off the main road, he walked past the bodega he used to buy coffee from every single day before school. The owner, sat by the entrance attempting to get respite from the heat, waved at him kindly. Rafael smiled back and waved reluctantly, already wanting to disappear behind the streetlamp and escape before he could be questioned, or rather shouted at, about Harvard. He quickened his pace, tightening his grip on his bags and continued walking, face down passed the graffitied kiddie park and further, through to the red walled house he knew so well. And his mother was home. 

All of a sudden the gravity of what he had done crashed down on top of him, constricting his lungs until it felt like he couldn’t breathe, the pressure of being 100ft below water. He couldn’t go in, not yet, couldn’t face her disappointment. She’d know even if he said nothing, would read his face like she’d always been able to. 

On the other hand, he couldn’t stand here on the doorstep with 3 suitcases and 2 big bags and hyperventilate out where any of his neighbours could see. 

Instead, mind working overtime, he pushed open their recycling bin, still empty from the collection, and pushed his bags in there, tucking the suitcases in first and then squishing in the big bags on top. He probably looked like a mess if anyone were to walk passed, a skinny latino boy frantically pushing bags full of textbooks and worn out clothing into a big plastic bin in the sunken steps to a home, but he didn’t care. As soon as the bin closed, gently as to not alert his mother, he started in the opposite direction than the one he came, continuing down and down, walking until he could no longer see his house or recognise the area. Faces passed him as he continued but he didn’t recognise any of them, safe from the gaze of people who could see what a failure he had become. 

A car sped past as he continued down, it’s blacked out windows down blasting a song from a few years ago; the kind that played at throwback nights at the cheap clubs scattered around New York.

It threw him back to a time when he, Alex and Eddie were running around, blasting it on the boombox down near the skate park. They’d just sit there and chill at the top of the ramps, looking down at the kids below them, each tiny like an ant. Eddie would always give some grand plan of how he would own New York one day, would make this park into a haven for hip-hop loving teens and skaters. None of them has a skateboard, but they all loved the feeling of sitting there, music carried away by the breeze as it was punctuated by the staccato taps of skateboards on metal close by. Rafael never cared much for hip-hop or pop, always preferring songs from musicals by people like Sondheim or the calm of acoustic pop, something people had begun to call “indie” and “alternative”. But he pretended to love Nas and Wu-Tang Clan, if only for the sake of his reputation.

And that’s what it was all about, really. His fucking reputation.

He would never be popular, be seen as the future president like Alex, and no one saw him as big and muscular like Eddie. But he was smart, and everyone knew it. Everyone knew him as the valedictorian, the debater, the person who introduced Parliamentary-style debating to PS-26. He was the kid who had a straight 4.0, 5.0 if they counted the college credits he took in his senior year. The kid who dragged himself out of Morris Heights, who fought to distance himself from his dead father and the tell-tale signs of an obedient catholic boy. He studied day and night to make his Abuela and his Mamí proud, to support his mother as she became a teacher and to make sure his Abuela never had to work at the hairdressers again, cutting hair to the 2/4 tempo of the boleros blasting through her stereo.

Rafael was proud, smart, he was a Harvard student, the first to make it out. He was a full-ride scholarship, he was attractive to the ladies (and only the ladies, even if he no longer had the grip of catholic guilt over him.) 

Sitting in this kiddie park along the I-95, he was reminded of how he was none of that. He was here, sat in a darkening park, too scared to go home to his family. He lost his scholarship, he dropped out, he was back to where he never wanted to return. He was attracted to more than women, even if he’d never let himself go near the rich gringos up at Harvard, and wouldn’t dream of venturing down the Manhattan and the East Village now he was back in New York.

The streetlamp turned on above him, and he still didn’t know what he would say to his mother, or even his grandmother, when he arrived back home. How do you say to the two most important people in your life that you failed, you’re back home. 

That you turned out to be everything your father said you were, even though you tried so hard to prove him wrong.

That’s what hurt the most, he supposed. His mother and abuela may be strict but he knew they’d love him, support him.

What hurt was that his father and all his comments, the hateful jabs at his pansy son, his disappointment, his weakling, all the comments and the snide remarks would be proven true. He was a failure, it really was in his DNA to stay and live a disappointing life in the Bronx, never making it out and never making his Abuela’s sacrifices in coming to America worth it. Everything his father yelled, angry like the wrath of God was inside him, each striking him to the core and becoming true. He was pathetic, weak, a coward, 5 miles from home on a darkening summer night.

His fixation on his father brought something back to him, his coping method for when the shouting became white noise and he wished to just grow out of his skin and continue getting bigger and bigger until he could escape the man towering over his mom and make him disappear. He used to sneak onto the fire escape in their old apartment and climb up and up, until he could no longer hear the auditory snow below and instead could see the stars, see every possibility and every place to travel and explore. He may not have been as scientifically inclined as he was debate and english lit, but even so, he could appreciate the need to go, to explore. He felt the restlessness inside his bones, humming for him to do more to be more. He may never be able to grow twice the size of his father physically, but he could always make sure the evil inside him never had a control over him. He could make sure that he worked and worked and worked to get his Bachelor’s and his Graduate degree, pass the Bar, start practising. Become everything his legacy told him he couldn’t be. 

He had to return to Harvard, beg for his scholarship back, explain the circumstances; everything he would do was not everything he had done. He was worth more than the rich kids who skated by doing cocaine on the weekends and asking daddy to build a new wing on the library to make up for their failed semester. He might’ve gotten lost, forgotten his place; believed that everything he had at Harvard he did not deserve - it doesn’t make it true.

Rafael had made it out, and he could stay out, he wouldn’t fall at the first hurdle. He wasn’t raised by a mother who survived the anger of a husband and a grandmother who travelled to New York with only her bag in hand, to then fail before he’d even truly began. 

Turning back in the direction he came, he stood up to go home. It had felt like his life was all cumulating to this one failure that would haunt him forever, when really he needed time to think, to be confronted with the truth. He had been busy with finals, speaking to advisors, trying desperately to scrape his grades up from the rock-bottom they had settled. Focussed more on salvaging the wreck than looking at why it happened. 

The breeze came over him as he continued walking, feet going on automatic as if he’s walked this route 100 times before.

Really, all Rafael had needed to do was to face his fear - familial disappointment, living up to his father’s accusations. 

Because it had all reminded him that it wasn’t too late because he was still alive, and his parents, grandparents, community, friends, reminded him every day that as long as you are still alive every day is a blessing and every day can be saved. It took coming back and being so scared of seeing them, being stuck here, to tell him that it wasn’t something to be afraid of. Going to Harvard was a blessing, but it didn’t make him holy for “escaping”, and he sure as hell wasn’t a failure for coming back. His mother and grandmother were the strongest people in his life, the people he looked up to everyday and hoped to do right by, and they still lived here, still worked everyday. 

The idea that leaving was his only way to grow was the thing that was truly constricting him. 

He passed by a neighbour, smiling small but genuinely in their direction as they looked up and nodded. 

Everyday in his freshman year, his motivation was fuelled by the yearning to be more than a kid from the Bronx, to fit in with the privileged white kids as they took drugs and scraped through classes. He really believed that being like them, ignorant of his culture, intoxicated, obsessed with wealth rather than what was right, was better than being like his neighbours, his mother, his friends.

When the neighbour he smiled to worked 60 hour weeks to send her kids to school with all the newest equipment and clothes, so they would thrive and gain the education they deserved. 

The person next door to his mom, a kind man named Isaiah, was shot once in the knee for refusing to allow a dealer to use his store to peddle drugs. Every day, since they moved to their house, he had smiled at Rafa as he walked to school. 

And sure, there were plenty of lowlifes around, lurking in corners or a floor above them in the apartment. But everywhere had lowlifes, even the fancy Tribeca neighbourhoods with $2m houses. 

He finished his thought trail as he made it in-front of the door, lights on and visible through the glass.

Before he could even raise his hand to knock, the door was pushed open and his mother started rushing him, a flurry of activity he could barely take in given his now exhausted state. He didn’t even think about her worry for him, given he had no cell phone for her to ring him on, too bulky and heavy for him to carry (let alone expensive). 

“Where have you been? Did you even think about me and how worried  I would be? I had to hear from Luther across the street that you had snuck in and left everything in the bin!  The bin! Imagine how embarrassed I felt! And then hours pass and you’re nowhere to be seen. I almost believed you had gone out partying, not a single thought towards your poor mother  or your abuela!” His mother kept fluttering, her tone giving off more anxiety than anger.

His mother was scared.

Moving to walk in, he held his hands up and kissed her cheek, attempting to placate her.

“Mami, I was out on a walk. I had nowhere to put my bags so I placed them there, I knew they would be perfectly safe. Luther is an irritating little ba-“. He was cut off before he could continue.

“Rafa, don’t speak ill of Luther. Yes, he is a gossiping old man, but he is also a gossiping  old man. ” She took a deep breath, looking Rafael up and down, only now taking in his thin clothes and the nervous energy he was projecting out.

He had lost weight since she had last seen him, all of 9 months ago. The phone calls never expressed his weight loss, or illuminated the stress clearly written on his face. He was only 19 and he already looked like the weight of the world was weighing on his shoulders, pushing him down with ease. He hadn’t grown anymore, which gave her little comfort even as she tried to cling onto her little boy. It appeared he likely had gotten few to no nutrients to even allow him to grow. 

“Rafa, you look thin, tired. Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t eat at that dreadful institution?” His mother nagged, hardly approaching the topic gently. Strangely enough, he needed the brute force.

He sighed, sitting down onto their worn orange sofa. Somehow they had manuvered into the living room. 

“There’s so much I haven’t told you,” He looked up into her eyes, seeing only bemusement rather than anger. Her hand rested on his arm in a half-embrace. “I’ve failed, Mom. I lost my scholarship.”

He choked a little, words getting caught in his throat and failing before they could even leave his mouth. Taking a deep breath, clearing the weight around his throat, he continued. He didn’t dare look her in her eyes.

“I got too lost in it. I tried to blend in with the white kids and it all got too much. I did stupid,  stupid things, things I wish I could take back and now I don’t know what to do. I want to beg for my scholarship back, but I don’t know if I’ll even get a hearing. How else will I afford that place?” His breath hitched as he finished, dawning on him that he really might have lost everything he worked for and he just told his mother all of it.

Before he could look up, he felt arms wrap around him and hold him tight, lifted up into the tight embrace he immediately recognised as his mother’s. It felt like he was a little kid again, out on the fire escape, cold and hoping to escape everything. She used to come up and sit with him at the end of the night, hug him close and whisper reassurances into hus hair, sing Cuban lullabies as they stared at the stars. Singing everything would be alright.

He looked up and made eye contact, his tear filled eyes meeting hers. They weren’t filled with anger or sadness, rather determination.

“Rafael Barba, tomorrow you wake up and you ring that estúpido school and you get that scholarship back.” She shook him a little, trying to instil some faith into him that he could do it.

“And what if they don’t give me it back?” He asked, still worried about the reality.

Smiling, she shook her head and tucked her chin over his head.

“Then I will sort it out. We will figure it out. I’ve survived worse than a fancy school wanting money. This is your future, I am going to make sure you have it.”

—————————————

Rafael was stuck thinking about his mother’s words as he leaned against Carisi’s desk, one hand holding a coffee mug and the other tapping absentmindedly against the side.

“What’s got you thinking so hard?” Sonny’s voice started him out of his thought track, pushing him up straight as he turned to face the Detective, stood looking inquisitively in his direction. 

Taking a sip out of his mug, he smiled at Sonny, an especially rare sight at work, no matter if it was 12 AM and it was only them and Liv in the Precinct.

“I was just reminded of how I nearly missed out on all of this when I was in college.”

Sonny smiled back, eyebrows creasing up as he set his file on his desk and picked up his suit jacket. 

“Nearly missed out on this? How? Did you nearly pick to do a Corporate Law module or something?” Sonny chuckled, waiting for Rafael to put the empty mug down before they walked down to the lift.

Rafael hummed, glancing at Sonny as their shoulders bumped when they walked. The lift doors opened and they descended down.

“Now this might surprise you, Counsellor Fordham-Law , since you won’t do anything with your law degree, but I always knew I wanted to go into public defence. Maybe not SVU, but I always wanted to be an ADA, hopefully eventually a District Attourney.”

Carisi did look a little surprised at this, raising his arm and settling it on Rafael’s shoulders as they left the building and went out onto the chilly New York street. 

“Well I am surprised. What was it then, Rafa?” The affectionate use of Rafael’s nickname never failed to warm him, even a tad. 

“I lost my scholarship at the end of my freshman year,” He said nonchalantly, wrapping his arm around Sonny’s waist and hoping his easy nature dispelled any anxiety he felt around saying it aloud. 

Silence followed, before he felt Sonny stop and hold Rafael’s face, leaning down for a chaste (but loving) kiss. He parted and dipped into Rafael’s ear.

“I’m glad you didn’t miss out.”

_Sigue andando el camino por toda su vida_

_Respira._

**Author's Note:**

> comments & kudos are much appreciated!
> 
> song that reminds me of barisi?? “Flesh & Bone” by Keaton Henson (‘you’ too??)
> 
> in fact add my barisi playlist its : https://open.spotify.com/user/woweoin/playlist/4pq6Zkj7euadd5ioZ4HeDx?si=qSZ2UpkjRGWPpVy0dil-fw


End file.
